THE SNORING BEAUTY.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 9991, 22 March 1898, Page 2

THE SNORING BEAUTY.

Bt Anne Dorrc.LASs Snoavrtcfc.

Lanncelol Mainwarning had never thought Paris the place in which to fall in love. Whenever he had considered the subject at all, he had placed himself on a background of country scenery in England, -with a skylark singing somewhere above, plenty of primroses and violets abont, a general atmosphere of spring greenness and freshness, and a tinkling brook among the treas ; a properly poetical setting—a setting that would sound well in a sonnet. Mr Mainwaring wrote very pretty sonnets in the intervals of more serious literarj' work, but to-day, as he walked slowly down the Boulevard Haussmann, after having accomplished the most decisive act of hia life, he felt no impulse to embody that supreme moment in verse. He realised that no sonnet could do so—no sonnet, at least, of which he was capable. For Mr Mainwaring had fallen in love very completely and irrevocably, and if Paris was not an ideal place for the operation, the girl herself was more than ideal, for her charm far surpassed that of the rather misty, undefined goddess hastily taken -for granted, along with the skylark, in that mental landscape of his. Ho had always hoped to fall in love at first sight ; and he had also hoped to fall in love with a girl whoso beauty it would be his pride alone to fully appreciate. And certainly Miss Elizabeth Thayler hadacharm which any painter would be proud to put on his canvas. Mainwaring had met her, accompanied by her brother and aunt, walking down the Champs Elyseea only an hour or so before. He paused for nothing, but immediately and desperately fell in love ! It was only when they had almost met that he recognised in her male companion an old Oxford college chum, a friend never so dear as now, when Mainwaring greeted him with a warmth he almost feared to be deceitful. " Why, Thayler, old boy," he cried, " I haven't seen you for an age! How are

you ?" Thaylor responded with corresponding Tigour, and presented him to his aunt and 818 tor with a beaming recommendation iv bis favour. "What hotel are you stopping at?" Mainwaring aeked, for by ench banalities ie love accompanied—and this was a very necessary one. He loved Mies Elizabeth Thayler, but certain formalities must be ((one through before he could marry her and retire to the country -with the poets and ♦• worship mtwlo peifcct" on £10,000 a year, •nd the first formality was a call. Hie delight may be imagined when Thayler Darned hie own hotel; "This is very lucky for mc ; I am there too,' 1 he said. " May I call this evening? " "We am going to the opera," snid Thayler. " 1 tell you what, Mainwaring, come along with us. I know that Elizabeth ie longing to talk of you, for she was quite wild over that clever book of yours; co you'ttget on together." "You 6ce. Air Mninwnring, that I have a vwy loyal biothei , ," put in Mies Thayler, who had laughed outright at the end of her brother's speech. And Mrs Grantleigb, the aunt, who was stout ami good-humoured, added: "Do conio, Mr Mainwaring. I am, like my nephew, a good deal of a Philistine in matters of ai-b, but I feel quite safe in referring you to Elizabeth." Mm Grantleigh felt that a certain agreeable possibility gained strength from the polite Ardour of Mr Mainwaring'e acceptance. " It is decidedly visionary of mc to imagine such a thing," she thought; "the dear girl has hardly opened her lips, but he certainly looks like a delighted man." She cast a glance at him. A delighted man ? Mainwaring felt himself a very demi-god-among men as he joyotisly walked along beside Miss Thayler. Well named Elysian Fields ! The asphalt seemed to blossom with narcissus and asphodel beneath his feet. It was " Romeo and Juliet" at the Opera, that night. Mainwaring sat behind Miss Thayler in the box, dreamily listening to the musio as he studied its effect on her charming face. There was no blasd affectation here; the gray eyes were wide with an almost childish pleasure. During the lovescene she smiled and sighed with unooneoious

sympathy. " But if Romeo were only a little slimmer!" ebe said to Maiawaring. " What a pity one can't forget that he likes his. dinner better than hie Juliet ! But I wjll try to forget it." And she did so so effectually that Mainwaring flaw two great tears brim over her eyea and hang in the most poetical violet-and-dewdrop manner on her long lashes during the last tragic duet. Mainwaring went up to his room in the hotol. The last glimpse he had of Miss Thayler below before parting for the night was stamped vividly on his heart. " Well, I am done for," he remarked. •'She is simply adorable." He took up Browaing, Keats and Shelley glanced into Koine and de Mueset, but none of theao fitted the lofty rapture of hia mood. He was living in poetry now, with no need to search it in books, so he went to the open window, and leaning into the soft spring night, gbzed earnestly at the stars. He had been for some time engaged in this highly commendable and loverlike occupation when a real sound, a sound solidly real, of the earthy order»atruck his ear, producing on hie nerve;' as disagreeable a sensation as would a pitcher of very cold water poured suddenly over him. It was a *oore. Mainwaring had few masculine fade; was, in fact, as regarded most physical and many mental discomforts, •eronely stoical. Only one thing he simply oould not and would nob endure, and that one thing was snoring. He said thie to himself, turning hastily from the window— a sudden dampness springing to his forehead —in quite a rago at this moat unexpected, incongruous, and intensely disagreeable interruption, as the second snore, a deep, long-drawn guttural grunt, pierced with fatal clearness through the thin wall dividing hie room, and pierced aa well the very marrow of his bones. Mainwaring ran his fingers through his hair. «• I can't stand that," he said to him•elf; ♦* and it is evidently a fixture for the night. I know the fiendish species, warranted to keep one madly awake till morning ;" and a little chill trickled down hid spine and settled in the small of his baok aa the third snore rolled out its long crescendo. He listened with rigid reflection to the fourth snore. " Some great hulk of a fellow, I suppose, lying on his back with his mouth open. By Jove, I never heard more ferocious energy ■! Hie friends—his relations ought to tie his jaws up. It's a positive outrage." Mainwaring felt absolutely murderous as the fifth and sixth snores filled the vibrating atmosphere with a certain majesty in their releatle&s volume of sound. By the time ten, eteven, and twelve had come, verging now on the shrill and whistlings order, Mainwaring felt that he was at iever-point. Heput on his hat and went out. He was fond of Paris by night, and as he looked down the long sweep of the Champa Elysees, with its fringe of golden lights, to the Place de la Concorde, he felt soothed, forgot the snores, and thought of Elizabeth. It was past six when he returned to the hotol, decidedly tired and sleepy. As he entered the long passage where his room was—No. 24—he heard the sound of a turning handle, and prudently stepping back, saw, with eyes in which a certain horror slowly dawned, Miss Thayler emerge from No, 25, the room next his—the room of the enorer ! -

Miss Thayler was in a flowing dressing gown of white, and looked an angel with her unbound hair. She stepped rapidly down the passage away trom him, one hand gathering her snowy draperies about her, the other holding to her side a soft heap of garments, and pausing before a door, knocked. Mainwaring heard her say, " It is I, auntie; very early, I know, but may I come in f" saw her disappear, and fairly fell back against the wall, the ghastliness of a sudden conjecture that was almost certainly depriving him of breath. "That ethereal-looking angel to snore like a trooper !" he muttered. " C*n it be possible ?"' But the last straw of hope was ruthlessly snatched from him, for in a few minutes came soft footfalls up the hall. His door wae ajar; he could hear their light approach, their pause at the room next his, the dosing of the door, and then, then, after some moments *T wonderfully'short they seemed—of eileooe came »gara ft low, long anore, as of one lying down to pleasant •lumber. " .; " " Good heavens!" whispered Mainwaring, clutchinghie hair with desperation, "it is ehe !" He sat there listening (was ever lever placed in such a tr*gio*Uj eomiwl

position ':}, sat listening to his lady's snores, succeeding each other with growing force, until at last, quivering in a fantastic treble, they broke on a high whistling note, and after a hurried' connecting snort or so, resumed the deep, rumbling, sonorous boss once more. "-Good heavens! ■ Good heavens!" he repeated, mechanically. "This is terrible; this is ghastly ! " Yet he could not leave her. There was a blissfnl pain in suffering for and through her. He would not give up his room and expose her to the possibility of insulting cries and wall-rappings from some less loving neighbour. To crown all, he must learn to endure the snores, for he loved her.

" X will train myself to lisien calmly," he thought. " I will conquer thi3 unmanly weakness of mine. 1 will learn to like them ; I will learn to love them ; but she must never know that I am here beside her, must never see mc leaving or entering this room. I must come to bed late, and get up early. I had better change these evening clothes and get out now, for, upon my word, another hour would kill mc."

And Mainwaring, scourged by those direful sounds, tubbed, dressed, and took a turn outside to cool his fevered temples, and then went into one of the smaller dining-room??, where his table was laid, and ordered his breakfast.

Hardly had the crisp petits pains and the steaming milk and coffee been placed before him when Mies Thayler appeared in the doorway, attired with the most punctilious care. Evidently she was a quick dresser ; but Mainwaring forgot those sleepless hours, forgot the snores, as he looked at her, as he realised that she was going to sit down at the table beside him and have her breakfast too. This was the Princess free of the night's odious enchantment; the Princess with her sweet smile, her grave, pure eyes. Mainwarin:; rose to greet her. " So you aren't lazy, either," she said, giving him her cool little hand. " Jack always turns French when he comes to Paris, but I am more patriotic and energetic. What a lovely morning !—such sunshine ! and all those dear little pale green buds on the blue sky ! I do love the trees along the streets in Faris; they seem to border the pavements with poetry. One feels quite ashamed of hanging over vulgar shop windows when one can look up at them on the sky. Do you think mc very sentimental ?" she added, smiling a little at him over her shoulder as she stood at the window. " Don't, please ; for, to be honest, I like the shop windows too." "lam glad you own to such a healthy taste, but still more plad that you prefer the buds."

"I can't say I despise diamonds and pearls and other pomps and vanities. Did you sleep well. Mr Mainwariug, after poor Romeo and Juliet ?"

'Mainwaring shivered ; in spite of himself, his eyes fixed themselves on that delicate, dainty nose of hers. Was it posajble ? " Yes, I had a good night," he answered, truthfully in a sense—for had not rapture mingled with hie pains ? " And you ? I hope the alouette did not disturb your slumber."

" Oh, not at all ! I quite forgot that cruel alouette for a good many hours. The rossignol must have been singing." She laughed as though something amused her, and was adding, " I sleep—" when Mainwaring interrupted her hastily. The subject of their conversation was painful to him.

" What are you going to do to-day ?" ho asked, watching her pour her coffee and milk together with a charming dexterity. " Spend it in 'Vanity Fair,' I suppose, among Virot hats and Doucet gowns ?" " Well, I really don't know" (she put in three lumps of sugar, Mainwaring observed, with loving interest). " I thought of the Salon this morning, if auntie or Jack will only listen to the alouette in time." " Don't allow their laziness to spoil your morning," Mainwaring hastened to say. '• I should oe only too happy, too delighted, if you will let mc take you there." " I should like that very much," said Miss Thayler, who was an independent young lady, and who, besides, had heard all sorts of pleasant things concerning Mr Mainwaring from her brother. "fi auntie isn't up, I shall certainly take advantage of your kindness.'

"Kindnese?" cried Mainwaring, and put up his coffee-cup.only just in time to prevent hie eyes becoming too eloquent; for he must allow himself no love-making until he had grown to love—the snores. In spite of this resolution, nobty as it was kept, so far as words were concerned, Mainwaring and Miss Thayler telt themselves to be very good friends—oh ! very food friends indeed, by the time the 'alais de I'lndustrie was reached; and Mainwaring felt a % good deal mffre than that, so far as friendship' was concerned, though it was very pleasant to find in her such delightful sympathy or intelligent differing in literature, painting, and music.

Mainwaring paid very little attention to French art that morning, as he was more engaged in looking at Miss Thayler than at the pictures. She was all pretty interest and grave attention while listening to his remarks and criticisms. In the afternoon these two and Mrs Grantleigh took a long drive in the Bois, up the Avenue dcs Acaciae, sparkling with sunshine and gay toilets, and round the lakes where the swans slowly floated above their white reflections in the blue water. Mainwaring could have believed the night previous a bad dream as he watched the answering smiles in Miss Thayler'a gray eyes. The Thaylers dined with friends that night, and Mainwaring too had an engaggement; but though it was very late when he crept cautiously to his room', he might have spared himself the trouble, for, before he reached it, the fateful sounds he already knew too well greeted his ear.

She was asleep—asleep and more, for she was snoring. With Spartan firmness Mainwaring undressed and laid him down upon his bed of torture, a wet towel bound about his forehead, his hands crossed on his breast like a knight's effigy, rigid with determination. He needed all that he could muster, for the sound passed all bounds in direfulness. As he lay with aching eyes closed, his pulses throbbing, it seemed to him, in mocking unison with the rousing cadences, he longed, he prayed for sleep ; but sleep came not. Only the snoring grew and grew; it filled the room with solemn thunder, curdled his blood with shrill shakes and quavers.

Mainwaring won his spurs that night;

eOLO *sm el tin Wortfi C«tf Emmm

never was vi#il more terrible. But fatigue, absolute fatigue prevailed at last, and after hours that dragged by with agonising slowness, he Fell asleep. He dreamed of thunderous waterfalls above which Miss Thayler floated, smiling, in a mist of foam. A roll of distant drums rapidly approaching, until they were beating at his ear, seemed to awaken him, and he started up listening. The drums were snores ! but it was broad daylight, and he had slept. He had certainly slept—that was a comfort: but he did not yet love the discomforting concert, and he could not tell her that he loved her until he had accomplished that feat. Besides, it was too soon, too sudden ; she would think him bold. Mainwaring resolved to keep a tight rein upon himself ; but his resolution was broken.

In the afternoon he escorted Mrs Grantleigh and Miss Thayler to the Louvre. Mrs Grantleigh soon subsided into a seat in the Salon Carre, and the two young people wandered from picture to picture. Miss Thayler to-day was a little less interested in art, perhaps, a little more conscious of that pair of handsome eyes beside her, their adoration only veiled by good breeding. She met it, though, as she turned from the haunting smiles of the Mona Lisa, and though Mainwaring hastened to change his expression into one of polite attention, she almost understood, and looked back at the Mona Lisa with a sort of girlish confusion. The smile seemed to have gained meaning in that brief moment.

'•'She looks'as though she knew ail our secrets," said Miss Thayler, "and were gently mocking us. I wonder if she is kind or cruel ?"

" i am sure she is kind to us," said Mainwaring. That soft flush on her cheek, that sweet coldness in her averted eyes, were altogether too fascinating. "I wish she would tell you a secret she and I knew of," he added, almost before he knew what he was thinking of. " I don't dare to." Miss Tbayler bent a little nearer the picture's face, with a smile hovering about her mouth. " I don't want her to tell mc. I don't believe 1 would like the secret; besides, she is mocking us ; I feel sure of it. I don't trust her, Mr Alain waring, really I don't." And ehe looked at him with delicate coquetry. Mainwaring suddenly thought of the snores, and as he glanced back at the smiling sphinx, it seemed to him that her subtle eyes were full of malicious meaning. " Perhaps you are right. I don't believe she knows my secret, after all." " And you don't dare tell it, so I shall never know," said Miss Thay lor, lightly. " Perhaps I shall dare some day; it depends on you " —Mainwaring just restrained himself from adding, "you beautiful exquisite, adorable girl, which would certainly have startled her.

They were before a Rembrandt now. Miss Thayler looked at it with gentle gravity, and she replied. " Some day, yes ; you don't know mc well enough yet." " I know you well enough to love you," said MainwariDg, a great shadow seeming to him to settle down around them as he spoke, and to wrap them together away from the wandering tourists and sight-seers. Miss Thayler looked silently at him. "Oh, but you don't—really you don't!" she said; and then she turned hurriedly, shyly away, and went to her aunt. Mainwaring, as he stood looking with unseeing eyes at the Rembrandt, was afraid he had been too bold, too sudden. Or was it possible? Could she be thinking of the snores ? Hifl heart filled with the tenderest, most adoring pity ; but how to tell her that he knew that too ?

They hardly spoke to each other on the way home, for a strange constraint had grown between them. That night he fancied that he bore the snores more bravely. He slept a little longer too, though the night after was again sleepless—but perhaps the snores were particularly bad. At all events, on the succeeding night he slept really well. Miss Thayler certainly avoided him, but *he seemed neither angry nor displeased, though when they were together she gently but firmly warded off questions of sentiment. It was not until a week had passed that be found himself alone with her again. Mainwaring flattered himself with the thought that lay this time he had conquered his weakness. He could certainly sleep. Once or twice he had forgotten "that the snoree were ringincc in his ears. And this afternoon he had been taking tea with Miss Thayler and her aunt in their cozy little drawing-room, and Mrs Grantleigh had gone out on some excuse, leaving them leaning together over a big portfolio of photographs. They were silent until they came to the photograph of the Mona Lisa, and then Mainwaring said, " May I dare more now than I could the other day ?" " You don't know mc much better," said Mis 3 Thayler, a little pale, but smiling ; " you have known mc hardly over a week." " I am sure you have heard of love at first sight." " Yes, I have heard of it," said she. " I loved you from the moment I saw you." Miss Thayler was silent, and Mainwaring possessed himself of the little hand. " Will you give mc hope, darling ? Will yon give mc leave to go on loving you forever ?—for I shall, you know, with or without it. " lent it rather useless to ask, then ?" said Miss Thayler, as she definitely yielded up her hand, and,'as rapturously kissed it, "But you mustn't idealize mc. I am only a very every-day girl, very badtempered too, sometimes, and, and—" Mainwaring suddenly flushed very red. She was longing yet afraid to tell him. " Elizabeth," he said, " will you forgive mc if I speak plainly—if I tell you that I know, and love you all the more for it ? " " For what ? " asked Miss Thayler, staring at him with wide-open eyes. Mainwaring took both her hands in his. " My room is next to yours," he said, all his courage mustered.

Mies Thayler's eyes were euddenly lit up with laughing horror. " Why, then —why, then you must have heard " she began. " Yes, I heard your—your snoring." (nliaa Thayler started.) "I knew it was you," Mainwaring continued, rapidly. "I determined not to let it interfere with my love for you. I lay awake for several nights, I own ; but now, now, my darling, 1 can truthfully cay that they don't disturb mc in the least."

Mies Thayler had drawn her hands away, had risen to her feefc, and was looking at him with an expression he could not comprehend.

" Forgive mc for having spoken of this," he went on.

"Oh! oh! oh!" cried Miss Thayler. Was it anguish or shame in her voice ? She dropped into a- chair and covered her face with her hand. "OhJoh !" she almost shrieked. Her shoulders shook.

Mainwaring stood looking at her, white with confusion and horror. He should always have pretended not to know.

"Elizabeth!" he ventured, despairing, and then overcome by the sight of her grief, he turned and rushed blindly from the room." Would she ever forgive him ? Could she ? Had he not blighted with his vulgar anxiety the lovely blossom of their love ? He stumbled up stairs to his room. His door and hers were both ajar, and outside his lay a small coverlet, as though some one had dropped it there—a coverlet wadded, lined with silk, and the word"Toto" embroidered on it in red letters.

Mainwaring looked at it wonderingly. Then he staggered back, for the air was full of snores, and this time they came from bis own room. He pulled himself together, his heart filled with overpowering joy, for they were the snores. He knew every note, every inflection by heart, and whatsoever they might be, angel's or devil's, they were not hers. Mechanically he picked up the little blanket, went in, looked about, and then burst into wild laughter. There on the bed, curled upon the pillow, where, because ot him, Mainwaring's head had ao often laid hot with agony, was a very stout, very placid, most aristocratic old pugdog. He turned his large eyes on Mainwaring, their luminous brown and his black nose marking three dark values on hie gentle frosted face. He looked calmly, quietly at Mainwaring, and he snored—Heavens, how he snored ! It was all explained now. This was Toto, and Toto was hers. Finding the door open, he had wandered out, dropping his blanket on the way. He was probably an invalid, and he was the bundle Miss Tbayler bad been carrying into her aunt's room that morning. But Mainwaring had too much sense of humour to grudge his wasted heroism, or to feel otherwise than tenderly towards his innocent torturer. He wrapped the blanket carefully round Toto, smoothed hie brow, which had btooia* rather aaxiomly wrinkled, mad

carrying him gently, descended to Miss Thayler's drawing-room. She was sitting where he had left her, her handkerchief before her eves. Mainwaring walked in quietly. "Can you forgive mc Vhe asked. "In the name of this innocent yet guilty animal, I beg you to forgive mc." " Forgive you ?" cried Miss Thayler. " You are a perfect hero ! What you must have snffered ! No one can endnre the poor pete snoring but me,'"' and again burst out laughing. Then Mainwaring told her the tale of the pa3t nights. "I think," said Elizabeth, when he had done, " that you are a man to be adored."